Rev. Don Erickson

Here’s how I came up with the ranking of the hymns. Primarily I used the website secondhandsongs.com whose song search gives you the total number of times the same song has been recorded by different artists. So, I went through each Christmas hymn and noted how many versions of each Christmas hymn has been recorded. I also factored in something else – the inclusion of Christmas hymns in the top 100 streamed Christmas songs on Spotify. I start with #4 below and move up to #1. Then I will end with #5. #4 - What Child Is This? (edited from Galaxy Music Notes webpage) “What Child Is This?” is a famous and traditional Christmas carol crafted in 1865. The lyrics were composed by William Chatterton Dix, the son of a surgeon residing in Bristol, England. Dix spent most of his life as a businessman in Glasgow, Scotland, working at the managerial level of the Maritime Insurance Company. Dix was [enthralled] by traditional English folk music;. And when he started writing the lyrics for “What Chil...

How many times have you sung the doxology? Well, I’m 52 years old. If I sang the doxology at every Sunday service from my 5th birthday till now, I would have sung it 2,240 times! That’s a lot! For many of you, the number would be higher. That in mind, do any of you know the meaning of the word doxology? I didn’t "Doxa" means glory, and "logia" means to give words to or expression to. So doxology means to give words to or expression to glory, in this case, to the glory of God.  Okay, can any of you tell me who wrote the words to the doxology we sing? I gave you a hint in that question, by the way. "Ken" any of you tell me who wrote the doxology? Thomas Ken is the composer. Here’s a little bio from the desiringgod.org website: Thomas Ken (b. 1637 – d. 1711) crafted these plain and profound words in the late 1600s. He wrote them as the final and “doxological” stanza of three hymns he published, first for students at Winchester College at Oxford Univ...

1. For centuries before Jesus, prophets in the Holy Land shouted from the hills and in the city streets. Isaiah epitomized these hard-truth tellers. Amid the ruins of his day and city, Isaiah preached truth to power. His words from Isaiah 58 still ring true: Remove the yoke of oppression from among you,     the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, Offer your food to the hungry     and satisfy the needs of the afflicted. If you do, then your light shall rise in the darkness     and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually     and satisfy your needs in parched places… and you shall be like a watered garden,     like a spring of water     whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;     you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer o...

Below is from a no-longer functioning website of the Hartford  Institute for Religious Research (HIRR). (Hartford Seminary, where HIRR exists, is now Hartford International University.) The web-post asks and answers the increasingly pertinent question, "Do Church Growth Consultations Work?"  The web-post first appeared in June 2004 . It references research from 1986 done by C. Kirk Hadaway. I was in high school in 1986, which was 37 years ago. In 1986, we were living in a culture that was much more friendly to church life. According to Pew Research, in 1986 only around 8% of Americans claimed "none" when asked about their religious affiliation. In 2021, that number soared to 29%.  Many more examples of research point to the decline of religion in America as well as the decline in how religion is perceived. There is a whole generation (Millenials) and one still progressing (Gen-Z) that are largely non-religious. In other words, "the market" for church invol...